Elminster in Hell

• Sir Sabrast Windriver watched servants carry a hopelessly drunken noblewoman past on a gigantic fluted silver platter and smiled. Someday, the younger Lady Hawklin might learn to gracefully spew ruby wine all over herself, but she hadn't learned it this night-though she had been practicing.

Beside him, his good friend Andemel sighed and said, 'Such a waste of good wine. She could be so beautiful, too… in green.'

Sir Sabrast winced. 'And waste that much elven menthe? At six lions to the bottle, ruby wine's bad! enough, but…'

'Ah, but if we were truly noble,' Master Andemel Graeven said slyly, 'we'd not care a whit about costs! and prices.'

'If we were truly noble,' Sir Sabrast retorted, 'we'd! be out of business in a month and a tenday… at about! the time the Crown loans ran out. Tis a pity, to be sures that honest merchants can't get wagonloads of free lionffl from the Crown to indulge their mercantile whims!'

Andemel led the way back through the curtains into the! cozy dimness of their favorite alcove. By the gods, both of! the pillars that held up its arched ceiling had been moved.! There was a new and stonily regal bust of Azoun standings in one comer, too. Did they ever stop rebuilding things at the palace-with tax coins taken from those in Cormyr who! actually had to work for their living? Probably not. Andemel shrugged and asked his friend, 'Just who in Suzail, now would you be calling an 'honest merchant?'

'My apologies,' Sabrast replied with a smile. 'Let us say 'common-born,' then.'

Andemel nodded. 'Better. Ah, but I'll forgive many haughty nobles a lot of things so long as their vanity keeps them hosting revels like these. Did you see that lass with the glowing gown? When the mock flames died away right down her front, I'd thought I'd choke! How does she keep those emeralds glued on?' He shook his head in remembered admiration. 'She's still around, isn't she? Mayhap I'll ask her if she'd like to see the new Graeven garden topiary, hey?'

'Well, friend,' Sabrast told him, 'old lion you may be… but she's even older.'

'What' Magic? She looks not a day over twenty winters- if that!'

'Magic, indeed. Kept you from seeing her beard quite effectively, didn't it?'

'Beard? Sabrast, what're you drinking?'

'Excellent firewine, thank you,' Sir Windriver replied. He stepped out through the curtain to deftly procure an entire platter of oysters drenched in garlic butter. The servant carrying it looked very surprised but departed in swift silence. 'Andemel, you've met that young lass in the gown of flames before… and, as I recall, you didn't stop shuddering and cursing for a tenday. Yon lass is the wizard Elminster.'

' What? Sabrast, you're… serious. Oh, gods!'

'How did you think he learned all the Cormyrean gossip? Can you see him spending days sitting in front of a crystal ball when he can have the fun of spying into our minds in person?'

'But…' a shaken Master Andemel Graeven replied, bravely struggling with the shock of how close he'd come to trying, to win the charms of one of the oldest and most feared mages in all Faerun. 'But…'

Another brace of servants struggled past, gasping under the weight of a fat and snoring noble burden. Under the strain, the metal of the silver-plated platter was groaning more loudly than they were. The hairy arm dangling- over its edge might have belonged to Lord Blester… or Lord Staglar. No one else at court was quite grossly fat enough.

Sir Windriver drew the alcove curtains firmly shut. 'Glah! I'm not so eager to see more brazen young ladies that I have to watch all of Cormyr's most corpulent being; carried off to bed. Sometimes I wonder how this kingdord staggers along from one day to the next, with the likes of Blester leading the converse at court. Bah-enough of id You lured me here, Andemel, with talk of something that would interest me greatly. I trust 'twas more than thd pleasure of seeing Elminster in a fine enspelled gown!'

Master Graeven settled himself back among the cushions of the most comfortable seat and crossed his silver toed boots atop the gleaming polish of a handy side tabled don't recall having to lure you all that hard, Sir Wind- river… but aye, there is something of import I wanti to share with you. Something I've just acquired, called 'Godsfrown Shield.' '

'A 'Godsfrown Shield? Explain!'

Andemel reached for an oyster. 'If you should have valuable cargo stolen, wagon and all, or have a ware house burn with all that is in it, the gods frown on you no? So Baeaisin takes a stiff fifty golden lions and undertakes to intercede with the gods for a month, or a tenday or whatever you agree upon. If the wagon goes missing or the building burns, he gives you several thousands gold pieces to replace your loss. He is your shield, you 'Godsfrown Shield.' If all is well-and he has agents who watch very carefully over your wagon or warehouse, to keep all well-he keeps the fifty lions.'

Sir Sabrast frowned. 'Hmmm… a theft on his part, it seems at first-but no guards come all too expensive- especially when one must pay them more than a rival slips them, to avoid betrayals. Shields are always expensive- and if it fails, this one comes expensive to Baenisin.'

Andemel nodded. 'Exactly. Wherefore, I've purchased a shield on my shop that lasts un-'

The alcove curtains were thrust open, and a face that bore die latest stylish wisps of mustache and beard, adorned with tiny golden rings, peered in. 'Ah!' it exclaimed in delighted recognition, a scant second before a servant summered unnecessarily, 'Master Raurild Sarpath!'

Raurild turned and made an unmistakable gesture of dismissal to the servant, one that involved the transfer of a golden lion, then strode into the alcove, pulling the curtains firmly shut behind him. 'Andemel! You're alive, by the gods! A thousand thanks to Tymora for that! I've just heard about the fire in your shop yestereve and I-'

Master Andemel Graeven peered nervously into the shadow corners of the alcove, seeking spy holes with eyeballs gleaming in them… and thankfully finding none. 'Hush!' he said urgently. 'By Oghma, let the record be straight: the fire was not yestereve, but this night. About an hour from now.'

Sir Sabrast Windriver filled the momentary silence with a chuckle and poured himself more wine. Ruby, of course.

'Raurild, this is late out for you… your good wife grant permission for once?'

Master Raurild Sarpath grimaced. 'Yes, as it happens. 'Possibly good for business, so long as I drank but little,' she said-so here I am.'

'Your wife decides whether or not you can go out to a revel?' Andemel asked incredulously.

'Aye, quite so,' Raurild told him. 'In marriage, I leave all of the small decisions to my wife-in fact, she insists on it. The larger matters are mine to deal with.'

Sir Sabrast Windriver crooked one eyebrow. ' 'Larger matters? Such as?'

Raurild smiled thinly. 'I don't know. We've been wed (. only sixteen summers; no larger matters have come up yet.'

Sabrast and Andemel exploded in mirth. When he was recovered enough, the knight poured another glass of ft wine and held it out to Raurild, just as the alcove curtains parted again-and a sudden stillness descended upon the cozy scene. A quiet that bespoke tension. The four grim and fully armored Purple Dragons who held the curtains open might have had something to do with, the sudden change of atmosphere. Two officers raised glowing maces, flanking the slender, oily-haired figure off Suzail's most senior tax collector. Those court weapons! could paralyze or turn aside other spells, and they were borne only by the most able and high-ranking soldiers of the realm. Precept Immult Murauvyn wore the thinnest! of crooked smiles.

'Ah, Sir Sabrast Windriver,' Murauvyn said softly, 'what a pleasure finally to look upon your face. A hard man to catch up with in all sprawling Suzail. They warned! me, and I certainly found it to be so. Yet we meet at last. I bear a fond greeting from the Crown-and the request that you surrender unto me die thirty-six thousand lions in last year's unpaid taxes that you, Sir Sabrast, owe to the Royal Treasury of Cormyr!'

Feeling the sudden weight of interested gazes upon him-those of Andemel and Raurild foremost-Sir Sabras Windriver grew a whit pale. 'I seem to have failed to carry such funds about with me,' he observed smooth! 'It's these new form-fitting tunics… they leave precious little space for thousands of coins, y'see…'

Precept Murauvyn interrupted witheringly. 'Sir Sabrast Windriver, my agents have failed to find you with coins enough in your tunic at your villa on Turnhelm Street, you stables on Sarangar Lane, your city manor in Ambel Row, your business offices on Waervar Street, your little romatic hideaway on Westchapel Way, the cottage that so